Earlier in the year I spoke about the wish to be ‘retained’ by one of the two gyms I had recently been a member of. I thought you might like a little update.
I did rejoin one of the two gyms (it was the one with a favorite piece of equipment) for three months in January at a total cost of just over £50 a month. Despite going 4 days a week and trying a couple of classes I felt the same as I did when I finished the last stint. Throughout the membership I did not receive a call or inquiry as to how I was getting on but even so I was surprised that when my membership did expire I still didn’t receive a call. That said, a week later I did receive an email offering me the chance to renew. I replied but it wasn’t to renew.
Fortunately salvation was at hand because during the three months a trust owned gym was getting a significant refurbishment. Better still they were offering monthly prime time membership in the heart of London for £19.95 (excluding classes) if you joined online and there was no joining fee either. I took a peek and while it was not quite up to the standard of my previous gym it was pretty good and had over 100 pieces of cv equipment, clean changing rooms, a badminton court (might be useful if I dust off the 1980’s Yonex?) and a small functional training zone too.
I am now into my second month and enjoying myself immensely. No one has asked me how I am getting on or made a customer service call but at least I am only paying £19.95 a month to be ignored!
2 comments:
Should retention really be about telephone calls?! If people like training they don't need telephone calls, they just exercise. If they don't like exercise then results should convince them it's worthwhile, not a phone call. The gym instructors should be interacting with customers during each visit trying to ensure results, not standing behind their desks looking bored. On a slightly different note, what is the 'favourite piece of equipment' that you mention? I presume it is a CV machine as you make no mention of the resistance equipment in your current gym, although I envisage a room full of machines and very little in the way of free weights? CV machines, certainly as used by most gym-goers, are particularly ineffective for achieving the majority of common goals. Maybe when we start filling our facilities with equipment which is much more likely to get results retention will become easier, but I guess this won't happen while managers with little knowledge of effective exercise do the buying. I'm not claiming it's easy, I know it's not, especially when faced with a membership who don't really want to work as hard as they need to in order to achieve their goals, but we make things hard for ourselves by filling our facilities with shiny, expensive but largely ineffective equipment and failing to interact with our clients while they are members rather than bombarding them with phone calls when it is too late.
Firstly, thank you for responding, it is very much appreciated.
I am not suggesting retention should be about telephone calls - it should be a whole lot more as you rightly point out.
My favourite pice of equipment is a piece of cv. Or should I say 'was' as I have discovered the joy of variety!
There is free weights area and a functional area too which I am beginning to use more and more thanks to some input from my wiser colleague on these things!
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